Michael Sam: ESPN Drops The Ball In Senseless Shower Segment

ESPN, who aired a segment featuring Josina Anderson about Sam showering with players, dropped the ball in providing quality journalism and devolving into a glorified and mutant offspring of TMZ and The National Enquirer.

Many sports fans collectively moan at the constant ad nauseam coverage of Yankees-Red Sox, Johnny Manziel, Tiger Woods and the unstoppable sports entity known as the SEC on it’s channels, while ESPN debuted a hideous new studio that looks like a failed D.I.Y. project, what was the point of airing such a senseless and inappropriate segment about who, what, when and where Sam showers with?

Thanks to the arrival of new rival networks such as NBC Sports and Fox Sports One, ESPN has devolved to the level of half-baked sensationalist drivel of hyping up an under-sized NFL quarterback, indirectly put Derek Jeter and David Ortiz on the same pedestal of God and Jesus Christ themselves and literally following the every move of a philandering adulterer.

We get it ESPN!

We get it that thanks to your 24-7, non-stop aggressive brainwashing that Yankees-Red Sox is the end-all be-all, greatest grudge match in sports history and that Johnny Manziel is the second coming of Roger “The Dodger” Staubach, Fran Tarkenton and—dare this writer say—Brett Favre.

An ESPN screenshot of Sam with his boyfriend, after finding out he was selected by the St Louis Rams

ESPN was the first to create the media monster that is Sam in interviewing him when he announced that he was gay.

ESPN was the one who infamously created the Sam phenomenon when they panned to him and his boyfriend embracing and kissing on camera during the draft, and now they are trying to slay it, as he dares to bathe with his fellow ultra-macho, overly-testosterone-injected gladiators that he does to battle with?

How dare he!

In choosing to air such a homo-phobic and classless segment, ESPN showed a level of gutter trash classlessness that would make Justin Bieber blush, and showed that they don’t care about hard news and facts and more about ratings, shock value and drama instead.

For the sake of argument, why don’t they air segments on who WNBA star Brittney Griner showers with in Phoenix. And in trying to lock up that special pre-pubescent MAXIM-reading male demographic, a segment on Kate Upton and Chrissy Teigen bathing with fellow Sports Illustrated models on location too then?

I mean all’s fair in ratings and fantasy for ESPN, right? Bottom line is who cares?

That’s right the Bristol-based, blatantly East Coast-bias sports juggernaut that manufactures “news” about a gay man showering with teammates—mind you they never cited a source—just an unnamed “player”. To paraphrase from New York Jets center, Nick Mangold and man up and put their name to it.

Whomever the producer was behind the segment should be reprimanded and fired, the producer suspended and ESPN should be called out by prominent LGBT groups such as AIC and GLAAD.

This is their Newsroom—a great show that is fiction, which ESPN is now about producing, and should learn from—”Operation Genoa” debacle, and face the consequences for their actions and be called into account.

Clearly they are not over it as Rams defensive end, Chris Long pointed out on Twitter, it’s time that the former SEC Defensive Player Of The Year as a player and talk more about sacks, tackles for loss and his understanding of the one and two technique instead of worrying about his showering in the company of straight men instead.

ESPN is an acronym for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. After the Sam showering segment, they should change it to Entertainment, Shock and Puff News instead.

(Editor’s Note: Prior to press time, ESPN released an on-air statement “expressing regret for the Sam segment that fell short of our editorial standards and commitment to excellence in reporting on the LGBT community, and expresses their sincerest regrets”)

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Founder, Publisher and CEO of INSCMagazine.
Works have appeared and featured in places such as Forbes, Huffington Post, ESPN and NBC Sports to name a few. Follow me on Twitter at @RobCobb_INSC, email me at [email protected]

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